The XML and SGML Cookbook. Recipes for Structured Information

By Rick Jelliffe

Jelliffe, Rick. The XML and SGML Cookbook. Recipes for Structured Information. The Charles F. Goldfarb Series on Open Information Management.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, May 1998. ISBN: 0-13-614223-0.
Extent: 650 pages, with CD-ROM. Email: ricko@allette.com.au. See also information in the main bibliographic entry.

Abstract

This book is about how to use XML and SGML to create your own
markup languages. The book has four parts: Systems of Documents, Document
Patterns, Characters & Glyphs, and Special Characters.

Overview

Part 1: Systems of Documents

Chapters on Documents and Publications; The Nature of Markup; Software
Engineering; Implementation Choices; and The Document in Use.

Topics include patterns, design principles, when to use attributes or
elements, extending and simplifying SGML/XML, the Top 10 Reasons Why DTDs
Fail, a new six-view model of publications, the flow of dependence, data
scrubbing, which kinds of documents are difficult for SGML/XML, and design
approaches such as reusable components, architectures, waterfalls, spirals,
information units, pools, viewpoint analysis, and scenario analyis.

Author's comment: "This part makes the expertise developed over the last
10 years of SGML available to XML developers too, especially all the
hard-to-find but useful things that introductory books omit. The book
includes much material otherwise only available through ISO, like the 1996
and 1997 extensions to SGML and HyTime. I have tried to avoid material that
has been well-treated in other books or which is on the WWW."

Author's comment: "Is this a pattern in elements, entities, or processing
instructions? That is the first question to ask when creating your own
markup language. The recipes in this part help you to fast-track your
development."

Part 3: Characters and Glyphs

Chapters on About Characters & Glyphs; Typeface, Script & Language; The
Flowering of Coded Character Sets; Them's The Breaks; Special Characters &
SDATA; From Characters to Glyphs; and East Asian Issues.

Author's comment: "Characters and words are the foundation of documents
and electronic publishing, yet there has not been a thorough treatment of
them available until now. Multilingual and East Asian issues are examined,
including material never before available in English. I enjoyed writing this
part enormously."

Appendixes: Special Characters

Appendixes are ISO Special Characters; HTML Special Characters; TEI
Special Characters; and Index of XML Special Characters.

Author's comment: "XML developers will appreciate the permuted index of
all the special characters available to them: these include a wealth of
typographical marks and dingbats as well as for the world's written
scripts."